I am not sure how to rate this book. I hated parts of it with all my heart because of the unfairness of it all, but this was intended I guess. Nevare has survived the Speck plague, but the magic makes him gain more and more weight (he becomes more powerful magically), so when he returns home to his family as a somewhat fat person, his entire family is ashamed, his family hides him away and his father starves him, mistreats him, tortures him. It is absolutely disgusting, hard to read, and so unfair. Becuase Nevare cannot lose weight, even if he does not eat for days. In the end, he has to leave his home after he has also lost his career as a soldier, and seeks to travel far away and try to lead a meaningful life there. The fatphobia that fat people encounter on a daily basis was made tangible and understandable in this book.

As a fat person who has been made fun off when going to the gym, when jogging, when eating salad, when eating pasta, or whatnot, I could really feel Nevare's struggles. I still don't like how he links being thin to getting everything he wants and that he now is entirely unlovable. It was really really hard to read at times and I also hate how it was all resolved in the last book of the series tbh.

Body size does not determine your lovability or capability in any way and yet this is the message that the novel gives you. If you're that fat, you cannot have a love life, you can just live as a hermit.

I don't know. So far I've disregarded the entire magic / fantasy aspect of the story, but it also did not really convince me. The magic does not seem to know what it wants, Nevare is just the victim who just tries to be a good person but falls prey to plots against him. Hard to read.

3.5 stars

Jonathan Barlow's reading of this series in audiobook form was so good. The material isn't the most exciting but he draws interest from small details.

I loved the first book of this series, so perhaps it should be no surprise that this one didn't quite live up to my expectations. It's hard to keep up momentum like that, for one thing, and for another, it's the middle book in the series. Nevare spends a lot of time feeling his way around, trying to learn to accept the world as it is, rather than as he wishes that it would be. And Nevare is a stubborn guy. No matter what evidence he's presented with, he does not want to believe that magic exists and that it's taken root in his life in a drastic way. Even when he does believe, it's in this halfhearted way that gets incredibly annoying by the end of the book. And to be honest, that's my biggest quibble with this book. Nevare spends way too much time denying things that he must know in his heart are true.

As many of the other reviews say, there's a lot of darkness in this book. Bad things happen to Nevare, pretty much one after the other. However, unlike a lot of people, that didn't bother me. Or rather, I didn't feel like my enjoyment of the book suffered from it. I felt bad for Nevare certainly, and I rooted for things to turn around for him. A huge part of me still really wants him to have a happy ending, although I feel like that's extremely unlikely. And yet, I wasn't put off by all of these bad things. I wanted to know more of what happened, and I wanted to see things get better, no matter how unlikely that may be. I was nervous about that going into this book, as so many of the reviews are mediocre at best.

I still really enjoyed Nevare as a character. Although bad things happen to him, he soldiers on. He tries to fulfill his dreams. He tries to protect the people he cares about. Hell, he still cares about people, even after some pretty devastating losses in that department. I feel like he's a really strong character, even though he isn't given a lot of agency by the story.

I also thought that it was interesting how the question of Nevare's weight is handled throughout the book. I try to be a very open-minded and accepting person, but a revulsion for fat is pretty deeply ingrained into our society, and reading this made me realize that I still have quite a ways to go in my thinking about weight. The way that people treat Nevare throughout the book, simply because of his weight, was definitely hard for me to deal with. It really made me think.

I'm definitely going to be continuing on to the next book in the series in short order - basically, as soon as I can fit it into my reading rotation. Robin Hobb is truly a fantastic author, and I'm glad that I'm working on getting caught up on her works again.

Another book by Hobb which I thoroughly enjoyed. Again I say I really don't know why this series has low ratings here, I actually really enjoy this and I am so intrigued about what will happen in Book #3 as so far Hobb has surprised me with twists and turns in both the first book and this one.

As we pick up the story here we again follow Nevare, the young Soldier Son who has already faced so much more than he ever thought he'd have to. Nevare has gone through trials of wit, skill and disease, and he's come out the other side... but he's definitely not left unchanged and when we meet him once more these changes are starting to truly manifest.

One of the elements I found most interesting in this book is the main character's constant battle with weight gain and hunger. The weight gain within this book is definitely there for story purposes, but the reactions of family and friends to Nevare's increased size seemed very realistic and cutting to me, making me think about the pressure of society and the values we place in it.

Nevare's dealings with magic have always been sporadic and hard to foresee, change or shape but in this book we start to see Nevare as he encounters more of it and also more of the Speck people (from who the magic stems). The magical system of this world always feels a lot more nature-based, primitive and powerful to me in this story than the magic within the Elderlings series. I have to say that this seems like a darker, much more sinister and controlling type. I definitely think I would be pretty unnerved if some of the things Nevare has to go through happened to me!

Seeing Nevare away from the Academy for a lot of this book allowed the world to open up a lot more and for Nevare to meet people who had very different ways of life to him. There were times where Nevare had to take control and suffer to prove himself, and even when he did sometimes it wasn't enough. Nevare definitely has a hell of a lot to deal with here, and I think he became a stronger character for taking his life in his own hands and trying (a little) to regain some sense of what he should/could do.

As always I come away from a Hobb book with absolute satisfaction that I just read a solidly good story and that I am sure the last book will be a good one too. I would give this a 4*s and so far this series has both surprised and enchanted me. Recommended for sure!

This book is more of a study of depression than anything else. Although Nevare is very introspective, he's also quite self-absorbed and deliberately cuts himself off from any help/friendship to the point where, although he is not entirely to blame for what happens at the end, you can see how it happens. I understand he's torn between two vastly different worlds, but as a protagonist, he's not very proactive. Nevertheless, the world Hobb has created is an interesting one, where three different cultures vie for domination, and you're not sure who to root for. Her prose is superb and the people act about as real as ones that you meet on the street. It's a pretty good read, but it is long and her Liveship Trader series was much better.

Wow, fantastic ending! But a very slow middle I think.

I wanted to know where the magic is going but I cannot emphasize enough that I do not think anyone should read this book. Ever.


If you have ever had any sort of body image issues, disordered eating, or any distress or obsession with your body or food there is no way to read this book in a way that is healthy for you. If you have never personally experienced any of those things, then you still should not read this book. It will negatively affect how you view fat people no matter whether you notice it consciously or not. I don’t know if the author intended the book to be fatphobic but the truth of the matter is that nearly every page of this will contribute to fatphobic ideas that readers have in their minds.

I am having trouble believing that the same author who wrote the genius realm of the elderlings series resorted to such lazy and harmful writing here. How can the same mind have produced this?